Political scandals thrive on open questions, and Chris Christie’s Bridgegate has plenty.

The political world was rocked last week when the New Jersey governor dismissed two of his advisers after emails showed they were involved in shutting down lanes at a heavily trafficked bridge in an apparent act of political retribution.

Christie dismissed the aides and apologized profusely at a marathon news conference, but a new trove of documents released Friday related to the closures showed the scandal is far from over. Here are POLITICO’s 10 unanswered questions that could shape how the story unfolds:

For Christie, the open-ended nature of the situation is dangerous. He can’t calibrate a strategy because it’s not clear when it will be over. And he acknowledged he’s uncertain about what more might come out.

The old saying about ripping the band-aid off fast has applied at no point during the scandal. The documents released last week showed that Port Authority officials and Christie’s own staff blew off media inquiries asking what was going on at the time of the closures, and for weeks afterward.

Federal prosecutors are reviewing the issue to see if it warrants an investigation, and state legislators are pressing ahead. This could go on for weeks, if not months.

Christie set a precedent with his wield-the-ax news conference last week, vowing that no one whose involvement in the lane disclosures was discovered would remain on his team.

In doing so, he set a standard he may have trouble keeping, depending on how involved other aides were. For instance, the new batch of emails Friday indicate a top press staffer in his office was at least somewhat aware of the controversy after the fact.

The count now stands at four people connected to the scandal who’ve left the Christie orbit: two Port Authority appointees, Bill Baroni and David Wildstein, as well as Christie aide Bridget Kelly and longtime political adviser Bill Stepien. Christie has guaranteed more questions about future firings because of the way he handled Kelly.

The Wall Street Journal, ahead on the Bridgegate story throughout the scandal, reported in December that Christie reached out to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who co-controls the Port Authority, to ask him to turn down the heat on the internal review of what happened.

It was Cuomo’s appointee, Port Authority Executive Director Patrick Foye, who called out the Christie appointees about the lane closures in Fort Lee in real time, the subpoenaed documents reveal. And according to the Journal piece at the time, Christie asked Cuomo to have Foye back off, at a point when interest in the scandal was intensifying.

A Cuomo spokesman denied the call took place when the story came out, although the Journal stood by its story. There’s also been no indication that Foye eased his foot off the gas internally. Still, given that the two governors have had a decent working relationship and given their shared control over the agency, it’s within the realm of possibility that they spoke about an issue that was gaining press attention. What Cuomo was aware of has become a point of intrigue in Empire State circles.

It seems only a matter of when, not if, Kelly is called to testify before the New Jersey legislative committee probing the bridge mess. It was her email to Wildstein — “time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” — that took a he-said, she-said controversy about Christie’s staffers into the terrain of full-blown scandal.

An open question is whether someone told her to email Wildstein. If she considered herself free to do it on her own, that raises other questions about the climate in Christie’s office.

It’s a question that legislative investigators want answers to, and they seem certain to try to push for them through Kelly.

5) Will Kevin O’Dowd’s nomination for attorney general proceed?

Christie defended O’Dowd, his former chief of staff and Kelly’s supervisor, at last week’s press conference. He was insistent that O’Dowd knew nothing about what happened.

Christie has put a lot of stock in O’Dowd, whom he nominated to be the state’s attorney general. O’Dowd is supposed to attend a nomination hearing on Monday, where legislators are planning to press him on the Bridgegate scandal.

Reports indicate lawmakers are now delaying the hearing, to better prepare questions to ask O’Dowd about the scandal. It’s not a desirable outcome for Christie.

6) Why did Mark Sokolich believe he was being punished?

Sokolich, the Democratic Fort Lee mayor who didn’t endorse Christie for reelection, said he doesn’t recall being asked to back the governor. Christie said last week he couldn’t have picked Sokolich “out of a lineup.”

Yet the documents legislators subpoenaed show Sokolich immediately asked Port Authority officials if the lane closures in his city were “punitive.”

What did he think he was being punished for, if not declining to back Christie?

7) Why didn’t Christie order an internal review?

Christie is a former prosecutor with a take-charge reputation.

So it’s hard to understand why Christie never ordered a top-to-bottom internal review of what happened when it became clear there was a controversy late last year. The most he did, he says, was meet with his top aides in December and tell them they all had one hour to admit to it if they were involved. No one came forward, he said, so he went out and told reporters his office had no connection to the scandal. He was told the closures were about a traffic study, he said, and he had no reason to believe otherwise.

Christie said that after firing Kelly and dismissing Stepien, he didn’t interview them so he wouldn’t be accused of tampering with potential witnesses. But why he never tried to ask more questions before December is a mystery.

8) Will Christie be subpoenaed?

Officials on the legislative committee that subpoenaed documents from former Port Authority appointee Wildstein have not ruled out the possibility that they will subpoena the governor himself to testify.

Christie was adamant that he knew nothing about the issue, pinning the blame entirely on rogue staffers. There’s been nothing released so far to contradict that.

But if the governor is forced to testify, it will be a spectacle. He could deliver a strong performance that strengthens his case that he knew nothing about the mess. But it will also draw maximum attention to the scandal, and it’s never a good look for a sitting elected official to be compelled to swear they’re telling the truth and nothing but the truth.

9) Will Democrats overstep?

Democrats spent the fall months nudging reporters toward the story and were triumphant in December when it became clear the situation was more serious than Christie aides had initially claimed. They believe they have found a crack in the veneer that could be fatal to Christie.

But the story is now at the point where it spins itself — between the firings, more subpoenas, more document dumps. The main question is whether Christie’s assertion of ignorance holds up.

If it does, Democrats still hope to bloody him up in the process, as a candidate in his own right and a helpful commodity to other Republicans. But Democrats also have a careful line to walk in not looking gleeful about the political impact of people whose lives were impacted negatively by the traffic snarls.

10) Do Christie’s fellow governors stand by him?

Christie is on track to go to Florida for an event with embattled Gov. Rick Scott. He received supportive words from South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley last week.

But the newly minted Republican Governors Association chairman is going to need clear-throated backing from his colleagues if the scandal wears on.

The top RGA finance man, Fred Malek, has stuck by Christie, and there’s no indication he will face trouble holding on to his chairmanship. He also has gotten support from a former governor and RGA chairman, ex-Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour.

One former governor who has been decidedly unhelpful to Christie is his former mentor, Tom Kean. The former New Jersey governor remains disappointed that Christie targeted Kean’s son in legislative machinations in the state Senate, and he’s been among Christie’s most vocal critics in the past week.

If the scandal grows, or changes, Christie’s role as a party leader could be at risk, and he will need all the friends he can get.